Lookahead:  Many of the Millennial Testimonies additionally had this in common:  The speakers were yoyo Christians caught in backsliding cycles before they came to the point at which they became irrevocably sold old for God.  Personally, I became frustrated and judgmental with a couple of the testimonies wondering how could they have fallen so hard again?  At that point, I had to repent and ask for God’s forgiveness–because I was more guilty than they!  After I accepted Jesus’ matchless gift of salvation, I continued my toxic behavior patterns for eight years until Jesus finally broke my cycle of habitual sin and submission to addictions.  In hindsight, how could I have been so stupid to keep re-immersing myself in things of darkness after experiencing His marvelous light?  But during those times, I did not fear (respect, honor) Him and, therefore, had zero wisdom in these matters.  I was unwilling to surrender to His Lordship until one day I couldn’t get out of bed because I had the jack-hammering/pile-driving revelation that sin leads to death.  But I’d had no terminal diagnosis, nor a “no-way-I-survived” auto accident, nor an NDE, etc.  The day before, I had had a supernatural encounter with the LORD in which He allowed me to have, what was probably, the tiniest glimpse of His Perfection, Goodness, and Peace.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good conduct, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast in it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peace-loving, gentle, accommodating, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap the fruit of righteousness. James 3:13-18

Continuing the Wisdom with Humility, and the Fear of the LORD discussions….

In the last post I had concluded that the One Who teaches us to be humble, was first humble Himself….In the Words of Jesus:   “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matt 11:28-30

Side Note:  As a brand new believer, these incomparable verses absolutely set me free–i.e., the revelation that He could and would give me rest.  I remember almost weeping when I heard the pastor preach them.  I was so weary!!! I had been under so much condemnation for so long, feeling like I fell short of every single mark, in every single arena of life.  I considered myself to be an epic failure; I was in the middle of a career reset, and it seemed that all my competitive and educational endeavors had borne zero fruit.  I was, as they say, sprinting backwards.  But these verses optimistically told me “Not to worry! God will take all your burdens so that you can have peace.” I appropriated and committed Matt 11:28-30 to memory ASAP; and was joyfully quoting these priceless verses to a long-term church member in association with my utter-freedom-from-bondage testimony.  But that person interrupted me and, in a pragmatic manner, corrected me with something like: “You’re saying it wrong. Your yoke is easy not light; your burden is light not easy.”  hmmmmm and I wondered why I was weary? 🙂 

Anyway, the One Who looks on the heart, not our memorization skills, says of Himself, “for I am gentle and humble in heart” and per the Greek Translation in Bible Hub: 

gentle (praus πραΰς)

I am (eimi εἰμι)

and (kai καὶ)

humble (tapeinos ταπεινὸς)

[in] the (tē τῇ)

heart (kardia καρδίᾳ) 

tapeinos: low-lying, fig. lowly, hence lowly in spirit; humble, lowly, in position or spirit (in a good sense); properly, low; (figuratively) inner lowliness describing the person who depends on the Lord rather than self; lowly; meek; properly, not rising far from the ground (Ezekiel 17:24); metaphorically…with a substantive, James 1:9; substantively of low degree versus rulers; equivalent to brought low with grief, depressed (2 Corinthians 7:6.); lowly in spirit, humble; as opposed to arrogant and scornful (from Proverbs 3:34)

That’s the nature of the person Who is asking us to accept His help and wisdom, and to be humble in life, like Him…as He is now and as He was during His earthwalk…   

While I was preparing the first installment on this scripture passage, our Associate Pastor preached on the Messianic prophecies in the Book of Isaiah — which brought to mind an exegetical deep dive that I did a few years ago for a Bible Study that I was teaching.  In the study, I asked the question — why would Jesus have a fear of the LORD–basically amounting to a fear…of Himself? 🙂 The pastor, and my deep dive study, quoted from Isaiah 11:1-2 which represents a most powerful Messianic prophecy and is directly talking about Jesus Himself (my emphasis):  

There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,
And a Branch shall grow out of his roots. 
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.

We know that the Branch is clearly referring to Jesus as corroborated in Isaiah 4:2, Jeremiah 33:15, Zechariah 3:8 and 6:12. Here’s the study excerpt:

But what does the “Spirit of the Knowledge and Fear of the LORD” mean? Why would God fear God? After years of searching, I finally got it that Isaiah 11:2-3 is so much about Jesus Christ and Who He was during His earthly walk. Jesus “feared” the Father. (The yireh Hebrew word is used for fear, and it can also mean phobic fear or terror, but it primarily means being in absolute awe of God coupled with respect and reverence.) The human, anthropomorphic Jesus had complete reverence for His Father and did everything that the latter told Him to do. Jesus and the Father had uninterrupted, better than WiGig 802.11ay, communication. But Jesus, for all intents, was a human being endued with power from on high. The Holy Spirit came to rest on Him in the permanent sense (as had happened intermittently with the prophets, but significantly amplified—Jesus was given the spirit without measure on earth). After He rose, Jesus’ divinity was restored and He was back to being part of the triune God. I like to think of Him as the visible image of the invisible Father–a tangible, recognizable, human-like interface, basically someone Whose eyes of love we can stare into or Whose nail-scarred feet we can clasp like the women who knelt before Him at the tomb.:)  He gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. Phil 2:7 As a slave on earth, Jesus didn’t make a move without His Father. 

Back on the “Millennial Testimonies Show Unanimous Lack of Fear” discussion that I began in the last post¹: 

A lot of the abuses, and temptations to major “sin-based escapism” that these kids were exposed to…I was exposed to as well.  But it was over the course of thirty years of kickin’ around–not with the fire hydrant high intensity that the pre-teens are seeing!  How can someone who is not emotionally mature resist the tsunami/onslaught?  

Also, these salvation accounts are all radical experiences of the undistilled LOVE of God during which He really turned up the volume–the Goodness of God leads you to repentance Rom 2:4–visions and nightly healing dreams and audible voices (in one instance a nominal Christian received a 24/7 gentle nudge/witness in her Spirit that she was on the wrong path. :-)).  It reminds me of the pre-Arab Spring testimonies of middle-eastern Muslims who were enjoying personal appearances by Jesus.  (One was to a man who had just made the Hajj to Mecca…with about a million other Muslims. Now that’s something the LORD would do.  🙂 )  And the miracles continue today in 2023:  (The founder of Transform Iran) added, “(in) Any gathering of Iranians or Afghan Christians, if you say, ‘How many have seen dreams (and/or) have been touched, if not radically, transformed because of a vision?’ 90% will raise their hands.”² My theory: God has had to “turn up the volume” with the Millennial Gen as well because the enemy has unloaded a multi-sensory flood of worldly stresses and temptations.  So He is radically saving this younger generation–and breaking through directly with dreams and visions–similar to what He is doing in the Muslim countries.

Many of the Millennial Testimonies additionally had this in common:  The speakers were yoyo Christians caught in backsliding cycles before they came to the point at which they became irrevocably sold old for God.  Personally, I became frustrated and judgmental with a couple of the testimonies wondering how could they have fallen so hard again?  At that point, I had to repent and ask for God’s forgiveness–because I was more guilty than they!  After I accepted Jesus’ matchless gift of salvation, I continued my toxic behavior patterns for eight years until Jesus finally broke my cycle of habitual sin and submission to addictions.  In hindsight, how could I have been so stupid to keep re-immersing myself in things of darkness after experiencing His marvelous light?  But during those times, I did not fear (respect, honor) Him and, therefore, had zero wisdom in these matters.  I was unwilling to surrender to His Lordship until one day I couldn’t get out of bed because I had the jack-hammering/pile-driving revelation that sin leads to death.  But I’d had no terminal diagnosis, nor a “no-way-I-survived” auto accident, nor an NDE, etc.  The day before, I had had a supernatural encounter with the LORD in which He had allowed me to have, what was probably, the tiniest glimpse of His Perfection, Goodness, and Peace.  I was totally overtaken by a sweeping, healing inundation of my soul that flushed every negative sub-atomic particle out of me as I wept uncontrollably and struggled to keep the car on the road. With the dawn of a new day, I (literally) woke up to how utterly bad my sin nature was.  I wouldn’t call that fear of punishment.  It was as if He was trying to protect me further by giving me a heads up.  I came away with complete awe and respect of His Power followed by eternal gratitude that He could still love me and forgive me.  

Equally important, I responded to Him because He wasn’t asking for slavish submission or perfect adherence to an endless list of rules and regs.  Again, and it bears repeating, He said to me, and says to you today, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matt 11:28-30  But what is this yoke that He’s asking us to take on…in lieu of taking on corporate America?

I searched the web for info on one irrepressible MNC’s slogans, because a slogan kept popping into my mind when this blog post was under way.  Can you guess who the following company is?  From the 1930s to the 1950s the company relied on the slogan “Live better electrically,” which was followed by two decades of variations on the word “progress,” such as “Progress is our most important product.” In 1979 (they) unveiled “We bring good things to life,” a cornerstone to one of the most successful corporate branding campaigns in history, backed by about $1 billion in advertising….In September 2001…Management decided that (they) needed a new articulation, one that was part mission, part vision, and part strategy. After 18 months of research, brainstorming, and testing, the company and BBDO Worldwide coined a new slogan, “Imagination at work,” and began to plan a marketing campaign to support it.³

Anyway, the slogan that kept popping into my mind was, “Progress is our most important product.”  Those six words evidently carried the advertising torch for many years; but in retrospect, it’s amazing that the slogan was ever considered such a marketing tour-de-force in the first place.  Most people today would say, “What’s this progress stuff?  Gimme the end-game product already…progress should be on your own nickle–don’t charge me for your R&D!” 

This slogan represents the very premise that makes Jesus’ burden so feather-light.  In life’s competitive arenas–in which people are killing themselves over the latest innovative creations, greatest number of monetized video views or followers, most stellar cinematic ROI/ROS, hugest market shares, etc., etc.–with the ultimate bottom line being the envy and approval of fellow men…Jesus offers us SHALOM rest and a burden-free existence during which He promises to help us continually achieve progress in our Christian lives…by walking through those lives with us as we build relationship. 

++++++++++++

¹https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbgW7Cztc6LDdf3bQPHtM2w

²https://godtv.com/iranians-encounter-jesus-in-dreams/

³://www.encyclopedia.com/marketing/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/general-electric-co#:~:text=From%20the%201930s%20to%20the,of%20the%20most%20successful%20corporate